Though there are still just twenty-four hours in a day, society’s idea of who should be doing what and when has shifted. Time, the ultimate scarce resource, has become an increasingly contested battle zone in American life, with work, family, and personal obligations pulling individuals in conflicting directions. In Fighting for Time, editors Cynthia Fuchs Epstein and Arne Kalleberg bring together a team of distinguished sociologists and management analysts to examine the social construction of time and its importance in American culture.

Fighting for Time opens with an exploration of changes in time spent at work—both when people are on the job and the number of hours they spend there—and the consequences of those changes for individuals and families. Contributors Jerry Jacobs and Kathleen Gerson find that the relative constancy of the average workweek in America over the last thirty years hides the fact that blue-collar workers are putting in fewer hours while more educated white-collar workers are putting in more. Rudy Fenwick and Mark Tausig look at the effect of nonstandard schedules on workers’ health and family life. They find that working unconventional hours can increase family stress, but that control over one’s work schedule improves family, social, and health outcomes for workers. The book then turns to an examination of how time influences the organization and control of work. The British insurance company studied by David Collinson and Margaret Collinson is an example of a culture where employees are judged on the number of hours they work rather than on their productivity. There, managers are under intense pressure not to take legally guaranteed parental leave, and clocks are banned from the office walls so that employees will work without regard to the time. In the book’s final section, the contributors examine how time can have different meanings for men and women. Cynthia Fuchs Epstein points out that professional women and stay-at-home fathers face social disapproval for spending too much time on activities that do not conform to socially prescribed gender roles—men are mocked by coworkers for taking paternity leave, while working mothers are chastised for leaving their children to the care of others.

Fighting for Time challenges assumptions about the relationship between time and work, revealing that time is a fluid concept that derives its importance from cultural attitudes, social psychological processes, and the exercise of power. Its insight will be of interest to sociologists, economists, social psychologists, business leaders, and anyone interested in the work-life balance.

CYNTHIA FUCHS EPSTEIN is distinguished professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

ARNE L. KALLEBERG is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

CONTRIBUTORS: Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Arne L. Kalleberg, Mary Blair-Loy, Allen C. Bluedorn, David L. Collinson, Margaret Collinson, Rudy Fenwick, Stephen P. Ferris, Kathleen Gerson, Jerry A. Jacobs, Peter Levin, Harriet B. Presser, Ofer Sharone, Benjamin Stewart, and Mark Tausig.

Unskilled workers once flocked to Detroit, attracted by manufacturing jobs paying union wages, but the passing of Detroit's manufacturing heyday has left many of those workers stranded. Manufacturing continues to employ high-skilled workers, and new work can be found in suburban service jobs, but the urban plants that used to employ legions of unskilled men are a thing of the past.

The authors explain why white auto workers adjusted to these new conditions more easily than blacks. Taking advantage of better access to education and suburban home loans, white men migrated into skilled jobs on the city's outskirts, while blacks faced the twin barriers of higher skill demands and hostile suburban neighborhoods.

Some blacks have prospered despite this racial divide: a black elite has emerged, and the shift in the city toward municipal and service jobs has allowed black women to approach parity of earnings with white women. But Detroit remains polarized racially, economically, and geographically to a degree seen in few other American cities.

REYNOLDS FARLEY is Otis Dudley Duncan Collegiate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan, and research scientist at the Population Studies Center of the Institute for Social Research

SHELDON DANZIGER is Henry J. Meyer Collegiate Professor of Social Work and Public Policy and director of the Center on Poverty Risk and Mental Health at the University of Michigan.

HARRY J. HOLZER is professor of economics at Michigan State University

A Volume in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality

For more than 200 years, America has turned to the decennial census to answer questions about itself. More than a mere head count, the census is the authoritative source of information on where people live, the types of families they establish, how they identify themselves, the jobs they hold, and much more. The latest census, taken at the cusp of the new millennium, gathered more information than ever before about Americans and their lifestyles. The American People, edited by respected demographers Reynolds Farley and John Haaga, provides a snapshot of those findings that is at once analytically rich and accessible to readers at all levels.

The American People addresses important questions about national life that census data are uniquely able to answer. Mary Elizabeth Hughes and Angela O'Rand compare the educational attainment, economic achievement, and family arrangements of the baby boom cohort with those of preceding generations. David Cotter, Joan Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman find that, unlike progress made in previous decades, the 1990s were a time of stability—and possibly even retrenchment—with regard to gender equality. Sonya Tafoya, Hans Johnson, and Laura Hill examine a new development for the census in 2000: the decision to allow people to identify themselves by more than one race. They discuss how people form multiracial identities and dissect the racial and ethnic composition of the roughly seven million Americans who chose more than one racial classification. Former Census Bureau director Kenneth Prewitt discusses the importance of the census to democratic fairness and government efficiency, and notes how the high stakes accompanying the census count (especially the allocation of Congressional seats and federal funds) have made the census a lightening rod for criticism from politicians.

The census has come a long way since 1790, when U.S. Marshals setout on horseback to count the population. Today, it holds a wealth of information about who we are, where we live, what we do, and how much we have changed. The American People provides a rich, detailed examination of the trends that shape our lives and paints a comprehensive portrait of the country we live in today.

REYNOLDS FARLEY is professor of sociology at the University of Michigan and research scientist in its Population Studies Center. As author, editor, advisor, and interviewer to the U.S. Census Bureau, he has been an active participant in each of the last four censuses.

JOHN HAAGA is director of Domestic Programs and director of the Center for Public Information on Population Research at the Population Reference Bureau.

CONTRIBUTORS: Kenneth Prewitt, Sheldon Danziger, Peter Gottschalk, Liana C. Sayer, Philip N. Cohen, Lynne M. Caspar, David A. Cotter, Joan M. Hermsen, Reeve Vanneman, Dowell Myers, Daniel T. Lichter, Zhenchao Qian, William P. O'Hare, Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Angela M. O'Rand, Mary M. Kritz, Douglas T. Gurak, Frank D. Bean, Jennifer Lee, Jeanne Batalova, Mark Leach, Sonya M. Tafoya, Hans Johnson, Laura E. Hill, Rogelio Saenz, Michael A. Stoll, Yu Xie, Kimberly A. Goyette.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

 "The Census is a most valuable source of information about our lives; these volumes make the story it has to tell accessible to all who want to know." —Lee Rainwater, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

"A lucid and balanced overview of major trends in the United States and essential reading for policymakers. State of the Union is a reality check that provides the factual basis for policy analysis."—Peter Gottschalk, Boston College

State of the Union: America in the 1990s is the definitive new installment to the United States Census Series, carrying forward a tradition of census-based reports on American society that began with the 1930 Census. These two volumes offer a systematic, authoritative, and concise interpretation of what the 1990 Census reveals about the American people today.

• Volume One: Economic Trends focuses on the schism between the wealthy and the poor that intensified in the 1980s as wages went up for highly educated persons but fell for those with less than a college degree. This gap was reflected geographically, as industries continued their migration from crumbling inner cities to booming edge cities, often leaving behind an impoverished minority population. Young male workers lost ground in the 1980s, but women made substantial strides, dramatically reducing the gender gap in earnings. The amount of family income devoted to housing rose over the decade, but while housing quality improved for wealthy, older Americans, it declined for younger, poorer families.
• Volume Two: Social Trends examines the striking changes in American families and the rapid shifts in our racial and ethnic composition. Americans are marrying much later and divorcing more often, and increasing numbers of unmarried women are giving birth. These shifts have placed a growing proportion of children at risk of poverty. In glaring contrast, the elderly were the only group to make gains in the 1980s, and are now healthier and more prosperous than ever before. The concentrated immigration of Asians and Latinos to a few states and cities created extraordinary pockets of diversity within the population.

Throughout the 1990s, the nation will debate questions about the state of the nation and the policies that should be adopted to address changing conditions. Will continued technological change lead to even more economic polarization? Will education become an increasingly important factor in determining earnings potential? Did new immigrants stimulate the economy or take jobs away from American-born workers? Will we be able to support the rapidly growing population of older retirees? State of the Union will help us to answer these questions and better understand how well the nation is adapting to the pervasive social and economic transformations of our era.

REYNOLDS FARLEY is professor of sociology at the University of Michigan and research scientist in its Population Studies Center.

CONTRIBUTORS: Claudette E. Bennett, Lynne Casper,  Barry R. Chiswick, William  H. Frey,  Roderick J. Harrison,  Dennis P. Hogan, Daniel T. Lichter,  Sara McLanahan,  Teresa A. Sullivan,  Ramon Torrecilha,  Judith Treas.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

 "The Census is a most valuable source of information about our lives; these volumes make the story it has to tell accessible to all who want to know." —Lee Rainwater, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

"A lucid and balanced overview of major trends in the United States and essential reading for policymakers. State of the Union is a reality check that provides the factual basis for policy analysis."—Peter Gottschalk, Boston College

State of the Union: America in the 1990s is the definitive new installment to the United States Census Series, carrying forward a tradition of census-based reports on American society that began with the 1930 Census. These two volumes offer a systematic, authoritative, and concise interpretation of what the 1990 Census reveals about the American people today.

• Volume One: Economic Trends focuses on the schism between the wealthy and the poor that intensified in the 1980s as wages went up for highly educated persons but fell for those with less than a college degree. This gap was reflected geographically, as industries continued their migration from crumbling inner cities to booming edge cities, often leaving behind an impoverished minority population. Young male workers lost ground in the 1980s, but women made substantial strides, dramatically reducing the gender gap in earnings. The amount of family income devoted to housing rose over the decade, but while housing quality improved for wealthy, older Americans, it declined for younger, poorer families.
• Volume Two: Social Trends examines the striking changes in American families and the rapid shifts in our racial and ethnic composition. Americans are marrying much later and divorcing more often, and increasing numbers of unmarried women are giving birth. These shifts have placed a growing proportion of children at risk of poverty. In glaring contrast, the elderly were the only group to make gains in the 1980s, and are now healthier and more prosperous than ever before. The concentrated immigration of Asians and Latinos to a few states and cities created extraordinary pockets of diversity within the population.

Throughout the 1990s, the nation will debate questions about the state of the nation and the policies that should be adopted to address changing conditions. Will continued technological change lead to even more economic polarization? Will education become an increasingly important factor in determining earnings potential? Did new immigrants stimulate the economy or take jobs away from American-born workers? Will we be able to support the rapidly growing population of older retirees? State of the Union will help us to answer these questions and better understand how well the nation is adapting to the pervasive social and economic transformations of our era.

REYNOLDS FARLEY is professor of sociology at the University of Michigan and research scientist in its Population Studies Center.

CONTRIBUTORS: Suzanne Bianchi, John D. Kasarda, Frank Levy, Robert D. Mare, Dowell Myers, James R. Wetzel, Jennifer R. Wolch.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

In the weeks following 9/11, the Bush administration launched the Patriot Act, rejected key provisions of the Geneva Convention, and inaugurated a sweeping electronic surveillance program for intelligence purposes—all in the name of protecting national security. But the current administration is hardly unique in pursuing such measures. In Security v. Liberty, Daniel Farber leads a group of prominent historians and legal experts in exploring the varied ways in which threats to national security have affected civil liberties throughout American history. Has the government’s response to such threats led to a gradual loss of freedoms once taken for granted, or has the nation learned how to restore civil liberties after threats subside and how to put protections in place for the future?

Security v. Liberty focuses on periods of national emergency in the twentieth century—from World War I through the Vietnam War—to explore how past episodes might bear upon today’s dilemma. Distinguished historian Alan Brinkley shows that during World War I the government targeted vulnerable groups—including socialists, anarchists, and labor leaders—not because of a real threat to the nation, but because it was politically expedient to scapegoat unpopular groups. Nonetheless, within ten years the Supreme Court had rolled back the most egregious of the World War I restrictions on civil liberties. Legal scholar John Yoo argues for the legitimacy of the Bush administration’s War on Terror policies—such as the detainment and trials of suspected al Qaeda members—by citing historical precedent in the Roosevelt administration’s prosecution of World War II. Yoo contends that, compared to Roosevelt’s sweeping use of executive orders, Bush has exercised relative restraint in curtailing civil liberties. Law professor Geoffrey Stone describes how J. Edgar Hoover used domestic surveillance to harass anti-war protestors and civil rights groups throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Congress later enacted legislation to prevent a recurrence of the Hoover era excesses, but Stone notes that the Bush administration has argued for the right to circumvent some of these restrictions in its campaign against terrorism. Historian Jan Ellen Lewis looks at early U.S. history to show how an individual’s civil liberties often depended on the extent to which he or she fit the definition of “American” as the country’s borders expanded. Legal experts Paul Schwartz and Ronald Lee examine the national security implications of rapid advances in information technology, which is increasingly driven by a highly globalized private sector, rather than by the U.S. government.

Security v. Liberty shows that civil liberties are a not an immutable right, but the historically shifting result of a continuous struggle that has extended over two centuries. This important new volume provides a penetrating historical and legal analysis of the trade-offs between security and liberty that have shaped our national history—trade-offs that we confront with renewed urgency in a post-9/11 world.

DANIEL FARBER is Sho Sato Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.

CONTRIBUTORS: Alan Brinkley, Stephen Holmes,  Ronald D. Lee, Jan Ellen Lewis, L.A. Powe Jr., Ellen Schrecker,  Geoffrey R. Stone,  John Yoo. 

"This well-edited collection of significant findings about Muslims in the United States after 9/11 focuses on Muslims in public and institutional settings. All of the contributors, even those with quantitative studies, bring the voices of their subjects into the text. Most of the voices come from young American Muslims, important agents in the transformations of self and community. The comparative nature of the book is another of its strengths-featuring Muslims and others in a small New England town, the Detroit-Dearborn area of Michigan, the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, Houston, Texas, and the Bridgeview suburb south of Chicago, Illinois. The book's fine concluding discussion suggests that citizenship discourses and disciplining practices are strongly reshaping American Muslim communities, even as they are subjected to constraints that challenge their attainment of full or 'normal' citizenship. Being and Belonging offers high quality scholarly research, and it should reach the general public as well as students in undergraduate and graduate courses across the nation."
-KAREN LEONARD, University of California, Irvine

"Not all Arabs are Muslims. Not all South Asians are Hindus, and not all African Americans are Christians. If the dominant subset of twenty-first century America remains Anglo, there have also emerged adaptive expressions of American identity. The push and pull between assimilation (losing yourself in the dominant culture) and accommodation (connecting to others but retaining your niche identity) persists. The marvel of Being and Belonging-at once original and evocative-is its piebald pertinence to the struggle for locating and projecting immigrant identities. Arab-Asian-Muslim-American identity appears here as a revolving kaleidoscope. For newly American Muslims, it is accommodation rather than assimilation that emerges as the major, visible trend for the near, and possibly long, term development of a specific and robust American Muslim identity."
-BRUCE LAWRENCE, Duke Islamic Studies Center

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, instantly transformed many ordinary Muslim and Arab Americans into suspected terrorists. In the weeks and months following the attacks, Muslims in the United States faced a frighteningly altered social climate consisting of heightened surveillance, interrogation, and harassment. In the long run, however, the backlash has been more complicated. In Being and Belonging, Katherine Pratt Ewing leads a group of anthropologists, sociologists, and cultural studies experts in exploring how the events of September 11th have affected the quest for belonging and identity among Muslims in America—for better and for worse.

From Chicago to Detroit to San Francisco, Being and Belonging takes readers on an extensive tour of Muslim America—inside mosques, through high school hallways, and along inner city streets.  Jen’nan Ghazal Read compares the experiences of Arab Muslims and Arab Christians in Houston and finds that the events of 9/11 created a “cultural wedge” dividing Arab Americans along religious lines. While Arab Christians highlighted their religious affiliation as a means of distancing themselves from the perceived terrorist sympathies of Islam, Muslims quickly found that their religious affiliation served as a barrier, rather than a bridge, to social and political integration. Katherine Pratt Ewing and Marguerite Hoyler document the way South Asian Muslim youth in Raleigh, North Carolina, actively contested the prevailing notion that one cannot be both Muslim and American by asserting their religious identities more powerfully than they might have before the terrorist acts, while still identifying themselves as fully American. Sally Howell and Amaney Jamal distinguish between national and local responses to terrorism. In striking contrast to the erosion of civil rights, ethnic profiling, and surveillance set into motion by the federal government, well-established Muslim community leaders in Detroit used their influence in law enforcement, media, and social services to empower the community and protect civil rights. Craig Joseph and Barnaby Riedel analyze how an Islamic private school in Chicago responded to both September 11 and the increasing ethnic diversity of its student body by adopting a secular character education program to instruct children in universal values rather than religious doctrine. In a series of poignant interviews, the school’s students articulate a clear understanding that while 9/11 left deep wounds on their community, it also created a valuable opportunity to teach the nation about Islam.

The rich ethnographies in this volume link 9/11 and its effects to the experiences of a group that was struggling to be included in the American mainstream long before that fateful day. Many Muslim communities never had a chance to tell their stories after September 11. In Being and Belonging, they get that chance.

KATHERINE PRATT EWING is associate professor of cultural anthropology and religion at Duke University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Melissa J. K. Howe, Sally Howell, Marguerite Hoyler, Amaney Jamal, Craig M. Joseph, Sunaina Maira, Bill Maurer, Jen'nan Ghazal Read, Katherine Pratt Ewing, Barnaby Riedel, Andrew Shryock, Richard A. Shweder, and Charlotte van den Hout.

Social science has been an important influence on legal thought since the legal realists of the1930s began to argue that laws should be socially workable as well as legally valid. With the expansion of legal rights in the 1960s, the law and social science were bound together by an optimistic belief that legal interventions, if fully informed by social science, could become an effective instrument of social improvement. Legal justice, it was hoped, could translate directly into social justice. Though this optimism has receded in both disciplines, social science and the law have remained intimately connected. Social Science, Social Policy, and the Law maps out this new relationship, applying social science to particular legal issues and reflecting upon the role of social science in legal thought.

Several case studies illustrate the way that the law is embedded within the tangled interests and incentives that drive the social world. One study examines the entrepreneurialism that has shaped our systems of punishment from the colonial practice of deportation to today's privatized jails. Another case shows how many of those who do not qualify for legal aid cannot afford an effective legal defense with the consequence that economic inequality leads to inequality before the law. Two other studies look at the mixed results of legal regulation: the failure of legal safeguards to stop NASA's fatal 1986 Challenger launch decision, and the complicated effects of regulations to curb conflicts of interest in law firms. These two cases demonstrate that the law's effectiveness can depend, not only on how it is drafted, but also on how well it harmonizes with pre-existing social norms and patterns of self-regulation.

The contributors to this volume share the belief that social science can and should influence legal policymaking. Empirical research is necessary to offset anecdotal evidence and untested assertions. But research that is acceptable to the academy may not stand up in court, and, as a result, social science does not always get a sympathetic hearing from legal decision makers. The relationship between social science and the law will always be complex; this volume takes a lead in showing how it can nonetheless be productive.

PATRICIA EWICK is associate professor of sociology and associate dean at Clark University.

ROBERT A. KAGAN is professor of political science and director of the Center for Law and Society at the University of California at Berkeley.

AUSTIN SARAT is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College and president of the Law and Society Association.

CONTRIBUTORS: Malcolm M. Feeley, Lawrence M. Friedman, Kenneth Mann, Deborah L. Rhode, Neil Vidmar, Jack Katz, David Weisburd, Diane Vaughan, Susan P. Shapiro.

Evaluates a technological approach to social change which seeks to cure society's ills by dealing with its symptoms, rather than root causes. It examines four such technological shortcuts in terms of their relevance to specific social problems: methadone in controlling heroin addiction; antabuse in treating alcoholism; the breath analyzer in highway safety; and gun control in reducing crime. The authors seek solutions which do not require large amounts of new resources or planning, and will accelerate the pace of social change. They indicate that technological handling of such problems may be the answer.

AMITAI ETZIONI is professor of sociology at Columbia University and director of the Center for Policy Research.

RICHARD REMP is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Columbia University and research associate at the Center for Policy Research.

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) stands among the great achievements of American democracy. Originally adopted in 1965, the Act extended full political citizenship to African-American voters in the United States nearly 100 years after the Fifteenth Amendment first gave them the vote. While Section 2 of the VRA is a nationwide, permanent ban on discriminatory election practices, Section 5, which is set to expire in 2007, targets only certain parts of the country, requiring that legislative bodies in these areas—mostly southern states with a history of discriminatory practices—get permission from the federal government before they can implement any change that affects voting. In The Future of the Voting Rights Act, David Epstein, Rodolfo de la Garza, Sharyn O’Halloran, and Richard Pildes bring together leading historians, political scientists, and legal scholars to assess the role Section 5 should play in America’s future.

The contributors offer varied perspectives on the debate. Samuel Issacharoff questions whether Section 5 remains necessary, citing the now substantial presence of blacks in legislative positions and the increasingly partisan enforcement of the law by the Department of Justice (DOJ). While David Epstein and Sharyn O’Halloran are concerned about political misuse of Section 5, they argue that it can only improve minority voting power—even with a partisan DOJ—and therefore continues to serve a valuable purpose. Other contributors argue that the achievements of Section 5 with respect to blacks should not obscure shortcomings in the protection of other groups. Laughlin McDonald argues that widespread and systematic voting discrimination against Native Americans requires that Section 5 protections be expanded to more counties in the west. Rodolfo de la Garza and Louis DeSipio point out that the growth of the Latino population in previously homogenous areas and the continued under-representation of Latinos in government call for an expanded Section 5 that accounts for changing demographics.

As its expiration date approaches, it is vital to examine the role that Section 5 still plays in maintaining a healthy democracy. Combining historical perspective, legal scholarship, and the insight of the social sciences, The Future of the Voting Rights Act is a crucial read for anyone interested in one of this year’s most important policy debates and in the future of civil rights in America.

DAVID L. EPSTEIN is professor of political science at Columbia University.

RICHARD H. PILDES is Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law.

RODOLFO O. DE LA GARZA is faculty fellow in the Department of Political Science and director of the Project on Immigration, Ethnicity, and Race at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University.

SHARYN O'HALLORAN is the George Blumenthal Professor of Politics and professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University.

CONTRIBUTORS: David L. Epstein, Richard H. Pildes, Rodolfo O. de la Garza, Sharyn O'Halloran, Stephen Ansolabehere, Thomas Brunell, Bruce E. Cain, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Louis DeSipio, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Heather K. Gerken, Bernard Grofman, Richard L. Hasen, Samuel Issacharoff, Karin MacDonald, Peyton McCrary, Laughlin McDonald, Michael P. McDonald, Spencer Overton, Nathaniel Persily, Christopher Seaman, and Richard Valelly.